Who will still be using SageTV in five years?

[panteragstk]

I tend to agree with the local storage theory. What will end up happening is that services like VUDU will become the norm. You will "purchase" content from someone and they'll store it so you can stream it whenever you want. IIRC this is the way Amazon Instant Video works as well.

My thinking is that if for some reason those companies went under (unlikely) or decided to either cancel your subscription due to something they deem fraudulent or whatever you essentially lose what you "purchased" from them. Somewhat the same way Google disables gmail accounts that have "suspicious" activity related to them. Or you would have no internet connection to watch something when you want to, so your "purchase" essentially has no actual value.

Seems like one of those great in theory, not in practice kind of things.

[TallMomof2]

I just built a new server as my 5 yo WHS v1 died a couple of months ago. I spent a lot of time researching Sage options but I couldn't find anything. Looked hard at Tivo and WMC but neither sold me. I'm more likely to move to WMC as there are extenders available for Win8 media servers.

To keep the backup capability from WHS v1, I installed WHS 2011 as a virtual machine and all I do in WHS is backup the household PCs.

I really wish I knew what the future holds for Sage, I live on the east coast, far from current Google fiber deployment.

[eric3a]

Respectfully, in 5-10 years bandwidth will be less of an issue, and the concept of recording & locally storing shows will be unneeded as streaming on-demand from the cloud will be widespread.

Maybe.
I doubt the content owners will have solved the distribution problems though. What if I "bought" an episode back home on my PC, get on a plane and try to watch it from another region on my tablet? What if I want to watch news from the other side of the world? At the moment I can't due to artificial legal restrictions. I can't stream some French news here in the US for example. I doubt that part will change in 5 years.

Also I spend a lot of time away from the internet (400 hours per year in planes, plus many weeks in poorly served internet regions). And when I can, I jump on my boat where I'm rather happy to have no internet. So for me the "always" on internet isn't my reality and I doubt it will be in 5 years. Having real local files is likely to continue to be a priority for me.

I hope that by then I'll have moved on from SageTV. Maybe via a dedicated XBMC PVR solution?
Or maybe a "stream catcher" kind of solution? (above or below board, don't care that much).
Eric

[pjpjpjpj]

For a while I've opined that the world isn't going to "all streaming, on-demand" any time soon because there are still too many old people alive who demand plain old TV the way they've always had it. My mom still has 20 years left in her and refuses to get a DVR; if she wants to watch something, she makes sure she's in front of the TV at that time, and if she misses it, oh well. She has a lot of friends who are just like her. They're called the Baby Boomers, and there's still a LOT of them around. And while I still think that is true, though I once thought it was more like 40 years, and maybe now I'll agree on 25 years.

But I agree with Slugger about content availability streamed. We just had an example in my house (much to my chagrin)... my wife discovered that old seasons of "Project Runway" were recently made available on the PlayOn channel (whatever channel that show is on, I don't even know... Bravo or Lifetime or something). For like the last three years or so, they only ever had an episode or three available. So while they were there, my wife jumped on it and we now have 82 friggin episodes in our recordings list (thanks for that "podcast recorder" plugin, guys. ) But my point is, there's never any telling whether a channel will make old episodes available like that. And they can, at their whim, withhold shows to make you pay for whatever they want you to pay for.

But I think the big thing that's going to stop "today's TV" from going away soon - and this has been discussed in other threads here - is that cable companies are buying up networks. Obviously, for just this reason - so someday down the road if you want a network's content, you'll have to buy the parent cable company's package. Said it before, I'll say it again, cable companies have had a cash cow for decades and they're not going to just give it up without an INCREDIBLY HUGE fight.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

For a while I've opined that the world isn't going to "all streaming, on-demand" any time soon because there are still too many old people alive who demand plain old TV the way they've always had it. My mom still has 20 years left in her and refuses to get a DVR; if she wants to watch something, she makes sure she's in front of the TV at that time, and if she misses it, oh well. She has a lot of friends who are just like her. They're called the Baby Boomers, and there's still a LOT of them around. And while I still think that is true, though I once thought it was more like 40 years, and maybe now I'll agree on 25 years.

That assumes they're mutually exclusive. I don't see cable or satellite companies going anywhere anytime soon either. But at the same time, we are pretty rapidly approaching a time when people who don't care/want/need to have a linear, channel-based TV source can get everything they want through non-linear distribution/on-demand systems.

We may never actually be rid of linear TV, and even if we are, it will be a long time from now.

For example I could just about go either way now. I'm actually getting some things (Top Gear, Dr Who) off Amazon, because there it's "HD" but my cable provider only offers BBCA in SD. I justified the cost of actually buying those two shows since it's a lot cheaper to buy those two than to pay for an extra Dish subscription.

I've not really seriously looked since I've got another 18 months or whatever to go on my contract but I could just about get everything I watch online (legally) except F1.

I think I "live" where we're going to be for some time to come. Not in a world where there's no linear TV, but in a world where linear TV is just another option, rather than in the past where it was the only option.

But I agree with Slugger about content availability streamed. We just had an example in my house (much to my chagrin)... my wife discovered that old seasons of "Project Runway" were recently made available on the PlayOn channel (whatever channel that show is on, I don't even know... Bravo or Lifetime or something). For like the last three years or so, they only ever had an episode or three available. So while they were there, my wife jumped on it and we now have 82 friggin episodes in our recordings list (thanks for that "podcast recorder" plugin, guys. ) But my point is, there's never any telling whether a channel will make old episodes available like that. And they can, at their whim, withhold shows to make you pay for whatever they want you to pay for.

It's kind of interesting to see how different people "use" TV differently. Personally I don't let the stuff I like to watch pile up, so I don't really care if only the most recent few episodes are available. The stuff I really care to have available for rewatching I generally buy on disc as the quality is better that way.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It's kind of interesting to see how different people "use" TV differently. Personally I don't let the stuff I like to watch pile up, so I don't really care if only the most recent few episodes are available. The stuff I really care to have available for rewatching I generally buy on disc as the quality is better that way.

None of the shows my wife recorded are "re-watching", they are all stuff she did not see. We went OTA 5 years ago (with Sage) and so she's not seen the show since then. These are all seasons she's missed since then.

I agree how it's interesting to see how everyone treats it differently. It amazes me that so many here keep everything they record. I record shows, watch them when I can, and delete. My wife will eventually get through those 82 shows and delete them. There's not a TV show out there that I need to keep. A decade ago I got (as gifts) various seasons on DVD of shows like The Simpsons and Friends and South Park, and I don't think they've every been played. Maybe some day I will pull them out and show the kids (when they're old enough ). The only stuff we keep are shows for my (young) kids, since they watch shows over and over. But, ya know, different strokes for different folks, I don't judge. Those people probably think I'm the weird one.

[valnar]

To me it is the whole enchilada which makes SageTV good. The PVR functions, commercial skip, unlimited storage, music & photos, no DRM, playback of local media on a Sigma-based device, etc. I could piece out most of those services to multiple devices, but then I would lose the integration not to mention my TV's lack a bazillion HDMI ports to support all that.

As many here, I would be okay with a 2-box solution, but three is out of the question. At the moment the best option is a DirecTV DVR with keeping my Sage HD300 for local media or replacing with a Popcorn Hour/Dune device. I already have a Blu-ray player for Hulu/Netflix, so I'm off the Playon hack. I'd still lose the unlimited storage, no DRM and automatic-commercial skip though.

My 3 HDMI ports on my TV are:
Sage HD300
Cable company's tuner
A/V receiver (supporting HDMI from Blu-Ray player, VCR, HD300's S/PDIF, and XBMC device I'm playing with)

[IVB]

All valid theories about the future, but with SageTV frozen in its current state, I'm confident in my guess that in 5-10 years, almost none of us will be using SageTV as we know it.

For example, what if DRM is determined and if someone offers the ability, a la iTunes, to buy a show & download to your local PC? Roku is just streaming right now. SageTV can't do that, you'll need something else. That could be Roku's next step. Perhaps tapping into a DRM-approved NAS so you can't just share it with all your friends, only approved players can access it.

I'm sure *someone* will still use SageTV. Then again, there's probably still people who watch LaserDisc. God knows there's people who swear by vinyl, claiming the analog sound is far superior to any digital format, despite 99% of us having ears that can't tell the difference.

[reggie14]

Like others, I expect to be an all-streaming house in about 5 years. But I don't think we're moving towards a digital purchase model for video. I think it will be subscription-based, a la Netflix or Spotify. TV shows just don't have the "replayability" of a song, so I think the purchase model just doesn't make as much sense. People aren't going to want to pay the amount demanded for a TV show/season/series, and content providers will be reluctant to charge lower prices for purchases out of a fear that they'll lose out on possible revenue should the show hit it big.

[stanger89]

First off, I wasn't trying to call anyone out or anything. I appologize if it appeared that way. It was just a simple observation that, well exactly as I said, it's interesting (reading the whole thread and the responses from everyone) to see how different people think about the subject. Some people are happy watching stuff as it comes out, some like to stockpile it for later. Some just watch and toss, others "hoard" it. Just an observation, nothing right or wrong about any of them.

Originally Posted by IVB

All valid theories about the future, but with SageTV frozen in its current state, I'm confident in my guess that in 5-10 years, almost none of us will be using SageTV as we know it.

Yup, it's been slow going, but things are getting better, and I think the rate of improvement is increasing. The reality I think is SageTV was probably a decade or more ahead of the curve. Honestly I never really thought about it before. I've probably regailed this story before, but I started recording TVs with PCs back in college. I did it because it was "convenient", initially I didn't have a TV other than my PC and used my PC to record, well because I could. That hooked me on DVR-ing, before anyone even called it that. Then I picked up SageTV as soon as they provided national guide data. I'd probably actually be a WMC fan/user if MS would have allowed the original MCE to be bought by normal people, but I digress.

I wasn't looking for anything special when I picked up SageTV 1.4, just something that would record TV that I could control with a remote. Just something that could do what a Tivo did, but on a PC.

I suppose it's like turning the heat up on a frog, Sage just kept adding features over 7 versions of the software that I just started using. I never really went out looking for many of it's great features, like clients, extenders, media support etc. But those features became deeply intrenched in my system/expectations, and only now that it's "gone", and we look around do we see just how far ahead it was.

As SHS pointed out, it's been a couple years and nobody has been able to match Sage. But at the same time, it seems everyone is hopping on the "whole house" bandwagon. Dish has the Hopper, DirecTV the "Genie", cable companies have their multiroom solutions. This stuff has all popped up and advanced considerably in the past year or so, and I'd only expect that to speed up.

And then there's Netflix, Amazon, and now Intel and other big players seeking to take the place of the traditional TV providers, so yeah, I just can't see there not being a viable replacement for SageTV before 5 years are up.

For example, what if DRM is determined and if someone offers the ability, a la iTunes, to buy a show & download to your local PC?

Like Amazon? You can buy shows and download them from Amazon. or stream them.

Originally Posted by reggie14

Like others, I expect to be an all-streaming house in about 5 years. But I don't think we're moving towards a digital purchase model for video. I think it will be subscription-based, a la Netflix or Spotify.

I really hope so. I've still got somewhat of a mental block about buying media digitally, especially DRM incumbered media.

[IVB]

Amazon doesn't download to android, just iOS. Hell, there's not even an Amazon streamer, stupid defensive move since Kindle is also Android.

Someday some idiot will realize thats a dumb move. Hopefully in <5 years.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by stanger89

others "hoard" it.

That would be me. I still have some VCR tapes (I also have some purchased VCR tapes) that were recorded in mid to late 80's to early 90's when I had cable. I dropped cable for 10 years or so and was only occasionally recording OTA on my VCR. When I got cable again I started recording more. When I discovered DVDs and later the possibility of recording to them I switched to DVDRs for recording. I started looking for a solution that I could use to record to my PC when I had problems with my DVDRs (tried several brands) and came across SageTV. What sold me was that at the time I was looking it was the only software (that I looked at anyway) that ran on Windows and allows multiple tuners. I'm now up to 31 tuners installed in 4 servers.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

That would be me. I still have some VCR tapes (I also have some purchased VCR tapes) that were recorded in mid to late 80's to early 90's when I had cable. I dropped cable for 10 years or so and was only occasionally recording OTA on my VCR. When I got cable again I started recording more. When I discovered DVDs and later the possibility of recording to them I switched to DVDRs for recording. I started looking for a solution that I could use to record to my PC when I had problems with my DVDRs (tried several brands) and came across SageTV. What sold me was that at the time I was looking it was the only software (that I looked at anyway) that ran on Windows and allows multiple tuners. I'm now up to 31 tuners installed in 4 servers.

....And some friends look at me like I'm loopy with my mere 12 tuners over 2 servers.

I started with VCR's and was up to 4 of them at their height. It was out of necessity since I worked an odd schedule (3 day shifts, 3 days off, 3 night shifts, 3 days off, repeat) so I had to record just about everything if I wanted to be sure to catch it.
Then I went with ReplayTv (Like TiVo, only they did it first and up until ReplayTV went out it was WAY better than TiVo) and just finally took the 4 of them I had offline once Comcast took away the analog service.

I was using SageTV with 4 analog tuners (dual Hauppauge PVR-500s), then 2 HDHRs (4 tuners) and an HD-PVR and STB. Finally I ended up adding a 2nd HD-PVR/Stb and bought 2 HDHR Primes. I have 1 HDHR Prime, one old HDHR, and the 2 HD-PVR/STBs on my main server and 1 HDHR Prime and one old HDHR on the old server. No CC's in the Primes yet.

Online streaming is probably the wave of the future, but until they can guarantee that every episode of every program will be available in perpetuity then I'll probably rely on recordings and use streaming for when a recording messes up. The thing I hate about online streaming and Comcast On Demand is the lack of commercial skip. I'm sorry, but I have way too much TV to watch to be burdened with all that wasted time watching commercials!

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

....And some friends look at me like I'm loopy with my mere 12 tuners over 2 servers.

If I could get an OTA signal that didn't change with the weather I could be down to 16. If the direction of the storm didn't make a difference on which tuner I could use and which channel the recording was on I could be at 16 or just slightly more as well. If SageTV could record back to back recordings on the same channel WITH padding intact I could reduce that to 10-12. Basically I have the huge OTA count so that between the 4 servers and the mixture of tuners on each I should get at least one GOOD recording of each favorite. Still hate the Weather announcements that make me delete episodes after watching hopping they will repeat in good weather. The drought last year actually cut that down alot. If they didn't feel the need to put up a storm warning for a single drop 100+ miles away it would help even more. Even the cable company feels that interrupting a premium channel like HBO is OK if a Tornado is 5 counties away and heading in the opposite direction. Cable could target their audiences for the storm warnings in ways that OTA could not - but they don't. Which is one reason why I'm on Satellite now. I had hopes of getting the networks over Satellite from the East or West coast feeds but they wouldn't give it to me - locals had to NOT be available.

Of the 31 tunners configured I have 2 HD-PVRs(1 HDTV recorder each), 1 nVidia Dual TV(2 SDTV recorders), 1 Collossus(1 HDTV recorder), 4 HVR-2250(2 ATSC tuners each and using 1 SDTV recorder), 6 AVerMedia Duets(2 ATSC tuners each), 3 HVR-950Q(1 ATSC tuner each) and 2 HDHRs(2 ATSC tuners each). I have the following additional backup (non-connected) tuners 2 HDHRs, 2 950Qs, 2 nVidia DualTVs, 1 HD-PVR and 2 AVerMedia Duets. They are mostly backups because of the SageTV sale to Google but some like the DualTVs were just retired.

[pjpjpjpj]

Just curious, for you guys who have 10+ (or 31 ) tuners, what's the most shows you've ever had recording simultaneously? Honest curious question, no judging. I'd love to hear Bob say he once had like 27 shows recording at once!

I'm a "relative" newcomer to Sage, having been here for 5 years. When I joined it was already up to Sage 6 (I think 6 was pretty new at the time). I was looking on AVS Forums for a Tivo-like solution for OTA only, and someone there pointed me here. I wish I knew who it was, it was probably one of y'all "regulars" and I'd love to thank you! Anyway, the extenders (the new-at-the-time HD100s) were the selling point, since they took all the video-handling load off the server. I had an old PC in storage that I was able to use as my first server and it's specs were shockingly low, yet it did just fine (I threw a little extra RAM in it, and did all my recording to external USB drives).

I always thought Sage was better than any other option and way ahead of its time, but I really only had the word of all you experts to go on, as I am not quite "up on things" enough to really know. I just know that it seems like every other option out there has some limitation that makes Sage superior.

Over the past five years I have impressed many/most friends if we get to talking about my TV system. They all want to know more. Unfortunately, now, I have to tell them they can't have it (since the Google buy-out). But I have to admit, every time a new media streaming device comes out, or I hear of friends who now have a Roku or AppleTV or whatever, it bothers me a little, because a piece of what I had that was "special" and "better" is just a slight bit less "better" than what others have. I liked being the one who was ahead of the game. And from what I read here and see "out there", I was waaaaay ahead of the game. Still am... just a little less ahead.

Of course, when someone is bragging to me about their AppleTV and how they can stream all this stuff right to their TV, I like mentioning to them about how I've been doing it for 5 years, and then I start telling them about all the other things my system can do (mostly thanks to all the great plug-ins). They kinda shut up quickly.

[stuckless]

I think I'll still be using SageTV in 5 years. My setup is "complete" in that it does everything that I need it to do.

I think that there are people that will be quite content with something like the Hopper (I know I probable would have been). When I joined the community, TV recording, wasn't even something that I was interested in. I had just hit the limits of Xbmc on Xbox and SageTV was a way to move forward with a media center that could play HD content. It wasn't until after a couple years that I actually decided to setup recordings (I used a PVR for years, and the BellTV pvrs were fine for our needs since we have 1 primary viewing area)

Of course now that I have TV and Movies into a singe unit, and it automatically fetches fanart (when it works.. I still need to talk the developer about some issues there... i hear kind of busy these days)... It would be hard to go back to what BellTV PVR looks like today.

For SageTV, what really attracted me was the fact that i could setup a single server and deploy extenders (which required no real configuration, tinkering, etc) to each TV. Even when i was using Xbmc, keeping it up to date on each "box" was tiresome.

I think eventually I'll exhaust the limits of my SageTV setup and my hope is that there will be something else available in the 5+ years when I'll need it. There is a lot more options today, then when I first came over (which wasn't that long ago), so I'm optimistic about the future. I think the home HTPC is always going to be a niche market that keeps on moving forward.... even if we don't.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Just curious, for you guys who have 10+ (or 31 ) tuners, what's the most shows you've ever had recording simultaneously? Honest curious question, no judging. I'd love to hear Bob say he once had like 27 shows recording at once!

Since I'm recording OTA on 4 servers simultaneously with the same favorites on each box - you are close. With the padding I have on my favorites it might be as much as 20 because of the overlaps at the half and whole hour time period. The most shows at once recording for the WHOLE show is probably 10 max but likely less. Some evenings there is NOTHING on but reality shows so it would be zero.

[tmiranda]

My cable company is starting to go all digital. If the set the copy flag to "copy once" I am screwed. I really wish Sage supported DRM Hopefully in 5 years I will be using whatever next generation "SageTV" Google has in store for us.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Just curious, for you guys who have 10+ (or 31 ) tuners, what's the most shows you've ever had recording simultaneously? Honest curious question, no judging. I'd love to hear Bob say he once had like 27 shows recording at once!

Well, since I only have 7 on the main server I'll have to say 7. There really isn't much of a need any more for my second server since it's 5 HDHR tuners are just duplicating what my 5 HDHR tuners on the main server are recording.
Initially my reason for leaving the old server running is I was using the 2 Hauppauge PVR 500's recording the analog SD versions of the network shows. That way whenever I'd get a bum recording on the main servers HD recording (bad audio usually) I could still watch the show in SD off the old server.
But, since Comcast has killed the analog band completely the PVR-500's can't record any more. Where I live OTA isn't an option. I can reliably get CBS and one PBS station as well as Fox. But ABC is iffy at best and NBC it pretty hit or miss.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

If SageTV could record back to back recordings on the same channel WITH padding intact I could reduce that to 10-12.

I hear you there. I would think it would have been "relatively" easy for them to do it, but they never did.

If I see a night where the tuner demand isn't too high I'll often set them for manual records so that I can get them all with padding intact.
Some networks are pretty good about starting/stopping shows at their proper time, but some others the -1 pre-padding and +2 post-padding are barely enough.